Tom Lark goes deep, MĀ has a lot to say and chill new tunes from Serebii

Tony Stamp lends an ear to Tom Lark's return with a quietly profound album about family history, MĀ’s environmental te reo rap and an effortlessly chill folk/soul hybrid from Serebii.

Related stories:

Tom Lark is the solo project of Shannon Fowler, who’s been putting out music under the name since the 2010s, (and had considerable success as a pop musician under the name Shannon Matthew Vanya). Despite early acclaim, his first full-length album as Tom Lark only came out in 2023, the Taite Prize-nominated Brave Star.

He's just released his second album, called Moonlight Hotel, which features 10 tracks of dreamy folk-rock he aptly describes as “meandering”.

Fowler’s knack for razor-sharp melodies and heart-piercing chord changes is in full effect. As a bonus, the album has a hefty thematic structure.

In the video for single ‘Dumb Luck’ he appears as a prospector, river panning while fending off wildlife. It turns out there’s a link to his forebears, who were displaced following the 1929 earthquake that destroyed Murchison.

“In terms of prospecting, looking for gold”, says Fowler, “that’s what [my family] spent their time doing. It’s a bit like a creative pursuit, where you’re going about the world mining your experiences for pearls of wisdom or golden nuggets. It’s similar in that regard.”

Moonlight Hotel is named after a real place, where Fowler discovered his third great-grandmother had worked. Picturing her life at that time provided fuel for his songwriting, and further research uncovered other colourful characters.

“There was this explorer called George Fairweather Moonlight. He spent some time in Australia and the States, but ended up in Murchison of all places. He was really good at finding gold, and used his fortune to set up this hotel where my third great-grandmother worked.”

The period is specifically referenced in the title track, and ‘Ballad of the Barry Boys’, a cautionary tale Fowler says is “more about leaving things unsaid, and telling people you’re close to that you love them.”

While writing the album he drew comparison between his family’s displacement and his own, following the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch.

“I was thinking about the shape that my life takes in relation to my heritage,” says Fowler, explaining Moonlight Hotel is more broadly about “making the best of circumstances. Moving on from whatever situation you’re stuck with.”

This sense of forward momentum informs Moonlight Hotel, as does his gentle philosophising. It’s aimable, soothing, sometimes psychedelic, and quietly quite profound.

Her 2021 album Breakfast With Hades was heavy, with a lot of feeling packed into its 10 nimble hip-hop and RnB cuts. Since then, Te Whanganui-a-Tara artist MĀ has made a firm stamp on Aotearoa’s musical landscape, with her band The Fly Hunnies, side project Iti Bubbas, and collaborations with Aja and Chase Woods.

They all feed into this follow-up, which still grapples with existential concerns while staying relatively upbeat.

‘Decay’, a collaboration with indigenous South Dakota musician Mato Wayuhi, begins the album with questions like “where are we gonna rest when it’s all gone?” Issues around environmentalism are front and centre, an area MĀ has more experience in than many.

She works as a biodiversity ranger, and has described Blame it on the Weather as a ‘bush album’. Her Instagram reads “Call me the Bush Maintainer”, a line from the song ‘Mahi’.

“Call me crazy but that’s a lot of water” MĀ sings on ‘BIOTW’, going on to say “I guess I'll blame it on the weather”. The song features news clips referring to Cyclone Gabrielle.

The weight of these concerns never tips into despair, with MĀ and her collaborators keeping a firm hand on the album’s mood. The old-school hip-hop flavour of Iti Bubbas sometimes creeps through, alongside psychedelic flourishes that tend toward trip-hop.

Rapper, singer, producer: she’s a major talent, with a lot on her mind.

Notes for this release suggest that Callum Mower (the artist behind Serebii) was “terrified” of putting his singing voice in the foreground, following a debut where it mostly peeked through the music rather than taking centre stage.

It turns out he has an enviable croon, soft but purposeful. It’s paired with shifting acoustic chords on ‘Feet for Pegs’, while ‘Goji’ features shades of tropicalia, complete with a lush string section.

The genre-spanning is impressive, Mower’s voice and fondness for piano chords suggesting neo-soul, while his finger-picked guitar evokes folk (he’s an avowed fan of Aldous Harding).

Making room for guest vocalists like Tessa de Lyon on ‘Lungs’, and Carla Camilleri on ‘Assembly’ blurs the margins of the Serebii project even more, and is testament to Callum Mower’s collaborative spirit. Whether in front of the mic or behind it, he has a knack for making music that feels effortlessly chill.

Tony Stamp reviews the latest album releases every week on The Sampler.